The stars above us, the world at our feet
by KroganVanguard
Summary: How did 'Raging Heat' come to be printed while Castle was missing? One-shot.


6 weeks, 3 day, 11 hours and counting. Since he disappeared.

Who's counting? She is.

That's how long it's been since she stood next to the burned out husk of his car, drenched, but clinging to hope. Clinging to the fact that there had been no body. Hoping they'd find with him. Though time had ground on since, had eroded the hopes of others, the irretrievable soundtrack of her counting just makes her more determined. She will find him. He will be alive. Those facts are central to her whole universe, what stops everything from collapsing inwards.

If she closes her eyes, she can see her home-made investigation board (not a murder board, not now, not ever) etched on the inside of her eyelids. She's come here for a change of pace, a change of scenery, anything just to spark her deductive logic.

Usually she'd turn to him for help.

The loft is quiet, still in the dark of the night. This week Alexis is withdrawn, silent and cool towards everyone. Martha waved her off, told her to let her have her space, at least for a while. Instead, she's here, in his office with just the ghost of his presence for company. His whole being permeates this room through and through, from his trinkets and trophies, to rejection letters and awards.

She fancies she can smell the sweat of hours he's spent in here on his laptop, persevering at book after book, scene after scene.

Idly, she rifles through the drawers of the desk, past pens and curios and all sorts of other junk (she really should help clean this desk out, after they get married). They went over this with a fine tooth comb immediately after he disappeared, her and the boys, looking for any clue, any connection, anything at all that could explain what had happened. They'd come up empty.

The bottom drawers are filled with notebooks, each one dedicated to a single novel. The top one is…

_Raging Heat_

The novel that was supposed to go out in September. The one they'd planned the wedding and honeymoon around, the one he'd told her he was just about finished with the weekend before the big day.

Almost guiltily, she lifted it out of the drawer. She never read his books till they were done. Oh sure, they discussed the crimes, the parts of the plot that he could use her investigative skills with, the way the twists and turns in the story happened. But she only wanted to read Nikki and Rook's story once the book was done, once he'd decided what obstacles they confront and how they'd surmount them.

The books were his love letters to her, after all. She only wanted to read the letter once he'd finished writing it.

She can't stop herself though, not right now, not when she needs him so much. She has to turn the pages, feel the paper that his own broad fingers would have skated over, his sky-blue eyes tracking the page. The first few pages are most scribbles and ideas, notes from their own actual cases, some crossed out, some underlined. Arrows flying back and forth, linking them together.

Then come outlines, chapters and scenes and sections. She skips over them, hurriedly, still unwilling to read the raw format of his book like this, wanting the finished product in her hand, the heft of the hardcover.

He makes sure she gets the first copy that's ever printed, both of the advanced reader copies, and of the actual print runs (she doesn't have to needle him about nosy reporters having them first anymore).

Towards the end, there are more doodles and procrastination, some wedding related lists and organisation. But the next page she turns hammers in the gut.

It simply reads

_Dedication: _

_To KB – The stars above us, the world at our feet._

She knows his dedications are the last thing he writes, so this might have literally been the last thing he'd written before…she fights back the tears that well up in her eyes, her fingers tracing the sharp, hard strokes of his penmanship.

This was about their wedding.

Their original, planned rooftop wedding.

Her heart welled up, with love and grief all at once. He took her breath away. He'd always taken her breath away with the dedications, right from the first one, when he called her extraordinary and the light of that belief shone out of his eyes. The way he'd looked at her, and talked about her, like no one else had. Believed in her.

Believed in them.

He hadn't given up on them when he'd been writing the books, over the years. Even when she'd been at her most hurt, her most stubborn, when she'd buried in her head in the sand and denied even to herself that she had fallen for him.

And she wouldn't give up on him now.

A single, wet drop escaped her eyes, her iron self-control, blotching paper beneath her.

She doesn't even think about phone call she's making till she hears the other woman on the end of the line.

"Hello?"

"Gina? It's Kate."

Silence, for a moment.

"Kate? Is it about Rick? Is there news? Have they fo-"

"No, no, we're still looking. I'm sorry for calling so late, but…"

Her eyes skate over the clock on the far wall, showing it's well past midnight.

"It's perfectly alright. What do you need?"

"I just wanted to know. About his latest book, like what…what was being done with it?"

She's proud that her voice is steady, collected. That it doesn't quiver like her hands as she continues to trace the dedication over and over.

"Well, we have the final manuscript, but obviously we're not going to publish it till there's some news. Till you find him."

"Is it really ready to go?"

Silence again, this time more contemplative than worried. His ex-wife and publisher is no fool.

"Yes, Kate. It's ready."

She takes a deep breath, steeling herself for her next words. She'll discuss it with Martha and Alexis in the morning, make sure they're OK with it (they're hardly going to turn on the presses tonight), but for the moment this is a step she wants to take. Needs to take. Let the world read his book, while she brings him back.

Let there be some degree of normality to things.

"Then, I think it should be published. I think that's what he'd want, Gina."


End file.
